A pneumatic tire may be vulcanized in a tire mold that is segmented. Each mold segment may be responsible for molding a portion of an outer surface of the tire. The mold segments may be arranged radially and/or circumferentially such that when assembled, the mold segments collectively form a surface for molding the complete outer surface of the tire.
Segmented tire molds may require a backing ring that holds each of the mold segments in place during vulcanization of the tire. The purpose of the backing ring may be to prevent the mold segments from expanding (i.e., being displaced in a radial direction) in response to an expansion of the tire in the mold during vulcanization.
Different sizes of tires may require different sizes of molds, which in turn may require different sizes of backing rings. Tire manufacturers may thus be burdened with production and storage costs that are directly proportional to the number of different sizes of backing rings that are required. Tire manufacturers that produce a large number of different sizes of tires may be burdened with high manufacturing costs as a result of the need to maintain a large inventory of different sizes of backing rings.
What is needed is a more cost effective solution for controlling the expansion of mold segments during the vulcanization of a pneumatic tire.